LENIN COLLECTED WORKS
[Illegible]

AMENDMENTS TO THE DRAFT DECREE ON BRIBERY¹.
[May 8, 1918]

I.
A person in the service of the state or public service in the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic (such as: an official of the Soviet Government, members of Factory-Plant Committees, house committees, boards of cooperatives and trade unions and similar institutions and organizations, or employees in such), guilty of accepting a bribe for the performance of an action falling within the scope of his duties, or c o l l u s i o n  i n  t h e  p e r f o r m a n c e  o f  a n  a c t i o n  c o n s t i t u t i n g  the duty of an official of another department, shall be punished by deprivation of liberty for a term of not less than five years, c o m b i n e d  w i t h  c o m p u l s o r y  l a b o r  f o r  t h e  s a m e  term [and with confiscation of all his property].

IV. Circumstances aggravating the measure of punishment for bribery are: a) special authority of the employee, b) breach by the employee of his duties, and c) extortion of a bribe\.

V. If a person t a k i n g  o r  g i v i n g  a bribe [or attempting to commit this crime] belongs to the propertied classes and uses the bribe to preserve or obtain privileges connected with rights of property, then all his property shall be subject to confiscation, and the guilty party himself shall be assigned to the most arduous and u n p l e a s a n t  public works*.

A p p r o v e d .
Lenin.

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¹ The document is printed from the original, reproduced on a typewriter. The amendments to the draft were entered by Lenin in pencil. This draft, on Lenin's initiative, was submitted for approval to the SNK on May 8, 1918 by the Commissar of Justice P. I. Stuchka. The question of the necessity to introduce with "demonstrative swiftness" a bill on punishment for bribery was raised by Lenin in a note to D. I. Kursky, several days before the submission by the Commissariat of Justice of the printed draft decree for approval to the SNK (see Len. Sb. VIII, p. 8). The Decree was published in "Izvestiya VTsIK," No. 93, of May 12, 1918.

* Here there are Lenin's notations: "+ § V", "+ VI". Eds.